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Preventable medical complications acquired at the hospital have become all too familiar in American life. In Texas, the truth about complications is, well, even more complicated.

In Maine, a high-performing state, most hospitals – more than 70 percent – perform at the highest levels of safety. But in Texas, only 28 percent of hospitals perform that well, according to a national panel of hospital safety experts.

A major new study from the Dallas Morning News confirms that in Texas, preventable complication rates vary widely from individual hospital to hospital.

The Texas Patient Safety Check revealed Dallas Regional Medical Center to have the safest record in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and the second safest in the state, with a low rate of preventable complications. Conversely, John Peter Smith Hospital in Fort Worth ranked the lowest in the state. There, patients are almost four times as likely to experience a preventable complication than they are at Dallas Regional Medical Center.

The study also reports that when taken as a group, North Texas hospitals perform significantly worse in preventing complications than area hospitals in other parts of the state.

Preventable complications include bedsores, infections and falls.

Patient safety advocates insist that patients and their families can take steps to help prevent complications and medical errors. Initiatives like “Speak Up!” from The Joint Commission encourage patients to pay attention to the medical care that they receive.

Patients are advised to keep track of the dosage of and timing of medication, to ensure that members of the medical staff wash their hands before treatment and to speak up when something does not seem right.

Concerned health care consumers can refer to the Texas Patient Safety Check through the Dallas Morning News. Additionally, the publication offers a Hospital Safety Check, a searchable online tool acclaimed by the Wall Street Journal for its safety ratings of hospitals nationwide.